


Another Way

by fictorium



Category: Last Tango In Halifax
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death Fix, Disability, F/F, Femslash, Fix-It, Physical Disability, Physical Therapy, The One Where Lesbians Don't Have to Die, in which Lola has some strong feelings about the road less lesbian-killing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-26
Packaged: 2018-03-09 04:20:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3236021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictorium/pseuds/fictorium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for 3x03.</p><p>Sometimes, the lesbians get a happy ending. Sometimes, it's a lot of work and love to get there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Way

It’s a year before Kate walks again. 

She takes her first independent steps on unsteady legs with the help of the foam-wrapped beams at the physio centre. On that day, that most joyous of days, Caroline still hasn’t quite worked out how to let herself be happy, and what she remembers that night in bed is how the foam grips were torn and chipped in various places: a legacy of the hands that have gripped while legs swung (or didn’t) to varying degrees of success.

They’ve been very lucky, as countless specialists have told them. The strain of giving birth while so badly injured would have killed most other people. Kate smiles her beautiful smile, the quiet one that she always directs downwards, sharing it only with herself. She’s proud, but thinks she has no right to be. Caroline couldn’t be prouder of her if she’d been the one who first split the atom, right there in their kitchen.

Flora, of course, has all the smiles that either of them could need. She’s a beautiful, life-affirming focal point now in these easier days, and it doesn’t do to dwell on the longer, harder ones where her incessant crying made things just a little tougher than they needed to be. 

They don’t talk of the nights when Kate was too tired to breastfeed, too sore to express it by the pint. Caroline, pragmatist and the hand to every pump during those terrible weeks, had been the one to quietly bring the tin of formula, mix it and heat it in the bottle warmer, all on the tray table across Kate’s hospital bed. It’s Caroline who pops the first rubber teat in Flora’s hungry mouth, having tested it once, twice and a third time for temperature; Flora drinks, and she grows, and that one nurse who persists with “trying” because breast-feeding “really is important for bonding” is mysteriously and permanently removed from the maternity service. Or the Sister puts her on shifts that keep her from Caroline’s line of sight, and that’s all anybody can really ask for. 

It takes that full year and most of another before Kate will consider getting behind the wheel of a car. Caroline’s Land Rover has been discreetly traded in for a Lexus that requires less climbing to get in and out of; Kate’s hips and pelvis are fully, as much as they can be, healed but it takes one careless stretch for the old pains to return. 

Gurgling in her baby seat, even Flora falls silent for that first crawl of a drive. Caroline doesn’t say anything, just sits in the passenger seat with her hands in her lap. She doesn’t fidget, because the tricks learned invigilating countless exams mean she knows how to avoid being a distraction.

“You made it,” she tells Kate with an exuberant kiss, not caring that they’re barely in the driveway when she parks. Caroline doesn’t complain when Kate unclips her seatbelt and bolts towards the kitchen door. Caroline takes Flora carefully from the backseat, the routine well-practiced now even with the more formidable fixings that put the simple bassinet and regular seat belt combination they’d used for William to shame. If she takes the long way round the car, it’s only to allow Kate the privacy of throwing up in the hydrangea bushes without an audience. A few minutes later, Flora is spitting up the contents of her bottle, and they move on without ever realising exactly that they did. 

In that first year, Caroline retreats behind her terror. She builds sandbagged trenches in her mind out of ‘what if’s’ and ‘if she hadn’t’s’. There’s a certain freedom to do that, what when Kate is groggy from a series of anaesthetics, because rebuilding a lot of broken parts requires a positive flurry of surgeries. The surgeons, Mr. this and Ms. that, polite handing Kate off to one another like the scratched-up baton in the 4x100m relay. In her addled state, Caroline is comforted by the thought; she’s half-expecting Usain Bolt to be the next one who introduces himself with a plan to replace or relocate some vital part of Kate.

It’s around that time when Celia starts coming around, practically shoved by Alan, but she comes around all the same. Nobody apologises, exactly, and Kate is usually too drugged to be anything but vague and polite. Somewhere in the mess, Caroline thinks partial, necessary forgiveness will have to be enough, because she doesn’t have the energy to give any more or deny herself any less. 

Gillian, for her sins, is saddled with diverting or otherwise occupying John. Caroline will never understand that Yorkshire variant on a Tennessee Williams’ play, but it’s preferable to John hovering with wilted bouquets and offers of a sympathy shag. 

It’s only when the insurance renewal pops up in her email that Caroline considers what ramps and handrails will do to the value of their property. The split level rooms she’s adored since the moment she saw the place have become obstacles to navigate. The new perspective has spilled over into her work, with governors railing against her DDA improvements to once-sacrosanct period features. 

She considers backing down, not picking this particular fight when there’s night-feeding and thrice-weekly physio to juggle, but somewhere in the snide remarks and pointed agenda items, Caroline remembers that she would walk on broken glass herself to make life even a fraction easier for the woman she loves. And everyone, even in that school filled with little snots and unbearable bullies, is loved by someone. Should the day come when tragedy strikes them, or almost does, they’ll find no additional problems in any school under the care of Caroline McKenzie-Dawson.

“Thank you,” Kate whispers in bed one night not long after that first return to driving. It’s not the first time she’s said so, far from it. There’s just something in the quietness this time that lets Caroline actually feel it. It’s a balm for an ache she’s ignored for far too long. “I’m sorry if I--”

“Ssh,” Caroline insists, and although she’s gotten used to sleeping facing the window, from all the months when Kate couldn’t bear the additional pressure of them sleeping cuddled up, she rolls over. “You have nothing to be sorry for, you know that. Don’t you?”

“You know what I keep thinking of?”

“How lucky you are not to be teaching Year 10?”

“That. And when I dream, sometimes. You were going to drive William that day. This could have been you, it could have been worse, I could have--”

“Kate.” Caroline summons her courage, in a way she only does for unfamiliar public speaking and these simple declarations of everything that matters to her. “I think we’ve made it quite clear there’s neither of us getting rid of the other that easily. And if it had been, if it had all happened the same way round only with me, well… I’d have had you and Flora, and my boys, to get better for. I don’t think it would have been any worse.”

“She’ll be crying for a feed soon.” Kate’s voice is a little strained, but she’s never been very good at hiding her tears.

“I’ll get her,” Caroline reassures. “You know I don’t mind.”

Kate kisses her then, and it’s not the cautious, terrified kisses of the in-patient ward, nor the comforting kisses they exchanged on difficult days when words had failed them at home. It’s just like the kiss that had Caroline, headteacher and stickler for propriety, falling head over heels for her Modern Languages teacher. It’s hesitant and playful and laced with just a little smugness. It’s a kiss that knows it’s a good one, and Caroline is hopelessly lost in seconds.

“Hey,” Kate murmurs when they part, the splash of Caroline’s tears becoming uncomfortable for both of them. “I didn’t mean to bring that on.”

“I…” Caroline hiccups out a little sob. “I thought I’d lost you. And all these nights, even in that hospital bed or when we had you in the sitting room those few weeks… I slept right there and I didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“That besides our daughter, and William, and Laurence… that you’re the most precious part of my life. I’ve imagined my life without you in it, and that’s as close as I ever want to come.”

“You know that’s true for me, too?”

Caroline nods, and for once those nagging doubts are silent. She does deserve this. She deserves to love desperately, hopefully, and be loved just as boldly in return. 

“Besides, I’d never bugger off that easily,” Kate teases. “I’d be hanging round the place haunting you both.”

“My very own Jacob Marley,” Caroline sniffs.

“I’ve never been big on chains,” Kate muses. “For what it’s worth, I think we’re getting into the good part, now. I don’t want to jinx it, but--”

Caroline kisses her, soundly and true. “I’d marry you every Friday, if I could.”

“That would get in the way of fourth period German very nicely.”

“When you’re ready.”

Kate pulls her closer, and her arms move freely and flex as effortlessly as they once did. “I’m getting there. Put in a good word with my boss, won’t you?”

“I heard she’s a right cow.”

“Ah, you must have been talking to Gillian.”

They crack up at that, giggles muted to buy an extra few minutes of Flora’s finite sleep. 

“Your mum wants to go into Harrogate tomorrow,” Kate says, pulling Caroline close. “I was thinking I might drive.”

“You’re no longer satisfied with the park and Tesco Express?”

“It’s limiting, yeah.” Kate presses a kiss to the top of Caroline’s head. “Think you can still fall asleep like this?”

Wrapped in Kate’s arms, their legs carefully entangled and the pressure against each other even and pleasant, Caroline nods sincerely. Which, of course, is Flora’s cue to start wailing from the far side of the bedroom.

“You’ll be right there with that cuddle when I get back?” Caroline asks as she soothes their crying daughter, her brain that’s still happier with equations or complex budgeting devoted to the warming of milk and the pacing of steps, and exactly how many verses of poorly-remembered lullabies it will take to reclaim the peace.

“Where else would I be?” Kate asks in response, and that’s all it takes to make Caroline feel peace at long last.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you ever so much to monetfun for her beta's eye!


End file.
